|
Science
Report:
We've completed
the first portion of out work at Axial Volcano and are on our way south
to the Cleft segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge. We plan to spend several
days sampling and mapping along the Cleft segment and in the Blanco Fracture
Zone before heading back north to complete our work at Axial Volcano.The
VENTS Program has been studying the Cleft segment every year since 1983.
This work constitutes the longest yearly time-series at any ridge segment
on the planet.
We are now into our fourth
day of sampling and are more or less in a comfortable-though arduous-routine.
We have managed to work out most of the equipment bugs that occur early
during a cruise. Yesterday, for example, we began to notice that our workhorse
instrument, the CTD, was introducing electronic noise into some of the
data channels. A few easy changes did not solve the problem and we determined
that the main electronic package-the "fish"-must have developed a fault.
Since the fish is too complex to repair out here we decided to swap it
for our spare. We have a spare for almost everything we take to sea, since
even though failures are not common there is no electronic shop or hardware
store around the corner out here! So while the ship spent several hours
steaming 40 miles south to the Cleft segment and many of the scientists
could enjoy a short break in their constant duties, some of us spent the
time tearing apart the CTD package and installing a new fish. That effort
was rewarded on the next cast by the return of "clean" data on all channels.
As of July 24th we have
collected over 40 hours of CTD data and more than 200 water samples. Many
different scientists subsample each water sample. You can follow our daily
progress on the accompanying chart. We will be sampling until August 3rd.
How many water samples and CTD hours do you think we'll have when we're
done?
|
|
Graph showing the number of CTD samples and hours of CTD work so far
completed on the cruise. Can you guess how many samples will be done
at the end of the entire cruise?
|
|